i told @Infernarl and @SouthRatObservatory excitedly about my new upcoming teeth early last year. gushed about all the things i wanted to eat. miguel said “you know where you can eat a lot? a cruise!” and so HERE I AM, WRITING ABOUT MY 7 DAY CRUISE TO MEXICO
i still havent read the david foster wallace story my thread title is based on but im pretty sure, im PRETTY SURE without even looking at it that i had the opposite of a time as him. bottom line: ITS COMPLICATED. i loved being on a cruise and feeling nice and having free food all the time and cheesy activities in every direction i looked but like crew members not being able to speak their native language in front of passengers and the way i wasnt even allowed to clean up after myself kept making me uncomfortable. this kinda happeneed in disneyland too where i lost my mind a little from all the pampering and snuck away to the hotel to help fold towels in the basement, which was dumb! i could have got people in trouble! but i didnt and they were nice. i just … its hard to be around a ton of entitled people who dont care about making service workers lives easier because ALL MY JOBS WERE IN CUSTOMER SERVICE
that said i think if you have humanity in your heart it makes your time better because you care about everyone on the boat not just the passengers.
i like how i was like taking this all seriously and keeping notes but half of them are brain garbage
i know what this means though!! i can decode it!!!
DAY ONE - ESTABLISHING THE FOOD LOOP
we drove down to LA in a big orange maverick that miguel and sid just got to fit all my teeth luggage in. and hohoho i just bought an orange sweatshirt and dyed my hair orange so i very much looked like i belonged in the truck
apparently it was the ‘crimson tide edition’ that miguel was trying to rip off but he did a partial job and now it looks like it says CRIME edition. good. no one will ever suspect me if i hide in plain sight
cruise ships are huge. everyone tells you this and ive woken up plenty of mornings with the norwegian bliss pulling into the port a block away and seeing it out my window is like all those awful airplane dreams i have where im looking out the window and an airplane just flies straight into my face while i watch it coming but much slower and bigger and scarier because its real. the ship never crashes into my window but it scares me every time. because HUGE
we sailed on the NAVIGATOR OF THE SEAS, a ship from 2002, so not the newest fanciest ship but it was still 14 decks high with a ton of hot tubs and two waterslides and an ice skating rink and a theater and like 9034823904 resturaunts and like five floors of staterooms. i think the ICON OF THE SEAS is the biggest ship in the world right now if you want to see how ridiculous they get. but daphny, i need an infographic with a titanic comparison to understaaaand
me too buddy! i got you covered
oh my god this series of posts is gonna be so long. im gonna make coffee
okay i didnt need to type that out but did. i played with zaku and made coffee. IM READY
im not ready i have so much to share !!
~THE PROMENADE~ from ds9 is where we spent a lot of our time. the free pizza and sandwiches and coffee resturaunt thats open til 3am was here, and all the bars and little ‘clubs’ that almost all have some band or musician playing at the same time.
there is also tacky art everywhere. ill talk about the art auction more later but just be warned it is sub-hotel par. get ready for sprinklings of plenty of SHIT they put all over their walls. heres one of the less offensive ‘we gotta fill this space’ mosiacs. and like. i actually dont blame them for filling the spaces with gaudy shit! i watched ANOTHER video about CELEBRITY (edit! not princess! miguel will not let me besmirch his beloved princess cruises and their superior pizza) and their walls were COMPLETELY BLANK with nothing on them like a prison or hospital and yeah ill take the shitty hotel art on every surface instead of that any day. its funny too because celebrity is also owned by royal caribbean and its clearly roycar trying to be classy, which they’re incapable of
as SOON as a song fades another one comes blaring in your ears. the only safety is your dark room, or a swift elevator ride. at all other times there will ALWAYS be music playing (@Father.Torque THE FUCKING SONGS. THEY PLAYED ALL OF THE SONGS i wouldnt have been able to identify most of them a few weeks ago!!)
also they just have an orange thing sitting around on the promenade. i wanted to steal it so bad, it matched my outfit!!! a lady agreed we should steal it but we never enacted our plan. just good to meet more fellow CRIME EDITIONS on the boat
oh yeah i was about to talk about our rooms. just expect bouncing around through time and space and thoughts. im not a professional and this is why. okay once i get done cleaning zakus litterbox though
i got hungry after cleaning the litterbox and made myself a bowl of cottage cheese and pears. i usually do pineapples but the target near me hasnt had canned pineapples for like two months. is there a pineapple shortage? if i look this up i will be even more distracted so im going to try to rememebr what the fuck i was talking about before
ROOMS
god whatever i dont know where i am. we tipped the porter who was bragging about his gains from throwing luggage around so our bags could disappear and reappear in our rooms in afew hours
AND WE WENT TO THE ROOM
my room was great! we got a room WITHOUT a view. which honestly. its cheaper and seems the way to go? your room is PITCH BLACK at night and you get to fall asleep in darkness while softly being rocked by the ocean. climate control is also easier cuz you dont have a huge window facing the tropics so i could keep my room fucking COLD. love a cold room. we watched a video before the trip about this specific ship and everything he said was a lie so i had super low expecations of no plugs and no room for storage and shitty space management but our room was the opposite! closet had all the room we needed, beds were perfectly high enough to slide our checked bag size luggage underneath, tons of plugs and usb ports (power strips are banned from cruises but you can bring like multi plug ports or whatever they’re called. i never used it though)
like i expected them to be TINY because we were in a boat but it was mostly just smart. the bathroom could have been bigger but all bathrooms can always be bigger. all bathrooms could have claw footed tubs for depression soaks and a giant hot tub bath for parties and three showers and a couch but they never do. they NEVER do! this bathroom had a circular shower that i kept thinking had a wet door but that was just the PATTERN ON THE PLASTIC they did it so it looked like it had water drops on it!!! wily bastards!!! there was also a clothesline for drying in the shower! more smart space usage. i turned off the tv immediately becuase hte borderlands movie was in every category of movie and i dont watn to think about shitty stuff. why would i watch a movie on the tiny tv in my room anyway when i could watch a movie on the BIG SCREEN OUTSIDE from a HOT TUB OR POOL (spoiler: i didnt end up doing this, all my hot tub time was spent in the adults only space of the SOLARIUM)
okay. so we established the beds were comfy. the art is bad. miguel and sids room was ours mirrored, they even had the same bad art of a wave on the beach and a hand holding a nautilus shell. i hated the hand holding the shell art, i hated it so much
OH THE WALLS WERE METAL SO IF YOU WERE MAD ABOUT THE LACK OF STORAGE, WHICH THERE WASNT A LACK OF, YOU COULD JUST SLAP SOME METAL HOOKS ON THE WALLS
oh yeah the doors and duckies. its like, ship tradition on royal caribbean cruises that you hide/find duckies all over. like little rubber ducks. i never really looked for them but we found three. one was watching me take the raunchiest most diabolic shit right outside the buffet so i kept him, one was in the elevator and veronica hid him again later and i dont rememebr where the third one was that we found but i kept him too. you CAN rehide them if you want but no. im keeping it. i EARNED these ducks
DOORS. everyone slaps shit on their doors like its a college dorm! its surprising how many sub-industries there are for ships. like oh the people that sell ship themed door magnets, cruise themed shirts, hats, just so much shit you can BUY BUY BUY thats pointless, like our bed was super comfy, but right next to it was a little card that said
If you enjoyed the comfort of your stateroom, recreate the experience at home and leave sleepless nights behind. Catch more Z’s with our Royal Caribbean Bedroom Collection engineered for maximum relaxation and uninterrupted rest. Visit our site to purchase items for the Royal Caribbean Bedding Collection.
like jeez! EVERYTHING YOU SAW YOU COULD BUY
back to doors most people had mini whiteboards/big magnets that they bought specfically for their door for the cruise. or magnet poetry
this door has all three!
this was our door!
miguel and sids had space invaders without the mr saturns. i could have placed them better ididnt like how i put all the same saturns next to eachother but i was doing it very hastily becuase i have anxiety about being in peoples way!!! what if there was an emergency and i was just sitting there trying to figure out the perfect aesthetic spread of mr saturns!!! what if someone DIED because of mr saturn!! hed be so upset!!
oh yeah themed shirts. people loved wearing shirts with like, funny phrases on them, many related to the cruise. i kept a list!
- 10000 oh, ship shirts
- my wife is psycHOTic
- IBS, I BE SHITTIN
- ‘look out, I got the drink package’
- 'if I can’t wear my flip flops I ain’t going ’
- ‘working harder than an ugly stripper’
- breaking news: I don’t care
- child in ‘not just a mom’ sweater
- slaps dicks cattle Co. ‘meat that’s hard to beat’
- hooray for axolotl
- I’m just here for the trivia
- she’s armed and dangerous
- Moore plumbing ‘laying pipe since 1989’
- made of magic and sprinkled with sarcasm
- no bad day’s
- hotter than a hoochie coochie
- I support some sex marriage
- ask me about my dog (I have pictures)
- my therapist has whiskers [picture of cat]
- don’t worry I’ve had both my shots and one extra to be safe [picture of three glasses of booze]
- tumor (like some weird undecipherable squiggle) if you have to ask you wouldn’t understand
- I’m a multitasker I can listen, ignore and forget at the same time
- blame the drink package
- built in the 60s,some parts still in working order
- god knew I needed an angel, so he sent me a wife
- education isn’t important, DRUMMING is important
- 40s and shorties
- bad desicisons good times worldwide
i think a good cruise shirt would be one that just had ALL of these on it. i didnt come up with that idea. two of my friends who i showed the list to did, separate of eachother, so it must be a great idea
we havent even established the food loop!!! every night at 5 we sat in the MAIN DINING ROOM and every day from between 9 am and 9 pm we went to the WINDJAMMER which was the huge buffet full of food that you dont know if its gonna be great or a scientific mixture of zero salt zero fat food that LOOKS like what you want to eat but tastes NOTHING LIKE WHAT YOU KNOW TO BE FOOD. woo! i love a gamble. ill try to talk more in depth about food on certain days or whatever. but just remember that i was basically stuffing my face every two hours, and i didnt pay for any food at all even though they had ‘premium’ resturaunts that i was convinced just used more salt. BUT I DONT KNOW FOR SURE CUZ I DIDNT EAT ANYTHING FROM THEM
also all the windows in the buffet are HUGE so when you’re at sea/at port its just a beautiful place to eat. we’re still at the port in LA here but WINDOWS!!! VIEW!!! WOOO
everywhere had a view honestly, me and veronica found these huge round chairs that we took a quick nap in before the ship left port.
i just really like talking about the view while its still shipping containers and parking lots
we were planning on staying in our shaded corner through the ship leaving port but we got too eager to explore and left our post to wander around. it got snatched up immediately by another pale couple so more power to them. SHOUT OUT TO ALL THE PALE PEOPLE ON BOARD WHO APPLIED SUNSCREEN RESPONSIBLY AND DIDNT GET BURNED. I WAS WATCHING YOU WITH APPROVAL!!! i avoided sunburn as well!! wahooo!!!
okay i have to talk about ace of base now. for some reason, at the windjammer buffet had music playing constantly, but on the first day, every time we went i kept hearing ‘all that she wants’. like, A LOT. like every third song, and all the songs they play on cruise speakers are like truncated 2 minute or less versions, so when its every third song its playing every 4 minutes ,thats a lot of fucking ace of base. thats a lot of someone going ALL THAT SHE WANTS IS ANOTHER BABY. i became convinced that it was either 1. a way for the resturuant to keep people from staying in there for hours and eating all the food or 2. a way for people to think about conception so theyd have more babies to take more cruises and make royal caribbean more money. i was so afraid of hearing all that she wants all week, every time i ate. when we went to the windjammer for double dinner IT WAS THE ONLY SONG PLAYING. i wasnt prepared for this horror, i could not handle ace of base that much. and its not even i saw the sign! which is also terrible but like, not tellijng me CONCEIVE CONCEIVE CONCEIVE over and over. would i ever be free from this song?? it played so much we started keeping count! at least 17 plays from 3pm-9pm for three seperate buffet visits!!
STAY TUNED FOR DAY 2!!
oh wait ! the stalwart soul roomate!
it was a poop
after all that eating on the first day i finally got to sit on my toilet and take a shit but it WOULD NOT GO DOWN, it wouldnt leave hte toilet! just completely stuck to the side was a huge ass turd and whenever you sit on the toilet you’re met face to face with a warning that says ANY OBSTRUCTIONS TO THE TOILET WILL MEET A FINE OF UP TO 100 DOLLARS.so of course i panicked and broke up the cardboard box holding our soap and used it to break my shit into pieces and flush it down. but there was still STILL a little turd clinging to the side of the toilet, so we called it our roomate. our new friend
he eventually went down in the middle of the night THANK GOD BEFORE OUR BOY TOTOK CLEANED THE ROOM but he stuck aroudn long enough for us to remember
so the miguels semen thing is just a joke of his large sperms clogging the toilet with their thick stubborn heads. that note is pure brain garbage
@iguferon @SouthRatObservatory @Infernarl feel free to correct all the shit im misremembering on DAY ONE but dont get ahead of yourselves!!!
hopefully every other post wont be this long or at least ill be able to fucking focus on them
